Disclaimer: All characters within are property of Marvel Entertainment Group. (Lucky them.) No profit is being made from this work. (Unless they would like to start paying me to use their stuff.) No X-Babies were harmed during the making of this fanfic. (The X-Men in the story are another matter.)
Rating: PG
Summary: Bobby is suddenly forced into the role of father when Dazzler has to hide a certain frozen young man and his bestest Cajun bud.
Feedback: Always the kind thing to do for my poor ego. :)
Archive: (un)frozen gets top billing automatically and anyone I've given carte blanche to can continue on. All others please just email me the address where the story shall appear beforehand, thanks!
Notes: I blame a re-reading of X-Men 46 & 47. Oh, and I'm sure that loving ValKerrie's "Just the Two of Us" had nothing to do with it ... really! Honestly! *grin* All right! All right! I give her credit for some inspiration. Bobby as a daddy is just to cute. I also thank her for the Beta. :)

Frozen Pop
by Shade

Day One: Little Problems

For the fifth time that hour, Bobby Drake cursed his parents' cable company.

It wasn't that the company was bad, but when one was used to getting every known frequency, channel, and TV program on the planet due to Forge-enhanced Shi'ar technology, local cable just didn't cut it.

At least Mr. and Mrs. Drake had packed the fridge before they had left on their vacation. At first, Bobby had been perfectly content to housesit for his parents, but just after a single day, his famous boredom had started to appear in spades. He was currently on day two. He only had twenty days, three hours, sixteen minutes, and four seconds left to go. But who was counting?

The whole predicament began when the insurance settlement for his father's injuries had finally come in. Professor Xavier and Warren had already covered his father's medical bills. His father had disapproved, but the two mutants had insisted. After all, William had been defending their cause along with his son's honor. This left Maddy and William Drake with quite a bit of money. It had somehow been decided that a vacation would be the best option, now that William had been feeling better.

Bobby had been excited at first. They'd never really had the money for a family vacation before. It wasn't until his mother asked him to housesit that he realized he wasn't going. She had been excited, though, and kept going on about a second honeymoon. So, Bobby hadn't let his disappointment show. He was happy for them, instead. They had planned to drive down along the coast to Florida, taking their time. Once there, they would visit William's cousin that lived in Vero Beach, and finally, they would take a cruise to the Virgin Islands. Yes, three weeks of relaxation was in store for the Drakes.

Just thinking about it, Bobby contemplated cursing some more. Instead, he decided to call Hank again. It had only been two hours since the last call. Surely, Hank would have cooled down by now.

*Ring*

*Ring*

"Xavier's, how can I help you?"

"Do you guys deliver?"

He heard Jean groan before she answered, "Bobby, I have been informed by a certain blue scientist that if you called back I was to tell you that he was deceased."

"Aw, come on, Jean! Have pity! I'm bored! Talk to me for a while! Surely I'm missing some sort of good gossip or something!"

"Bobby, honey, you need a hobby, or some responsibilities. I have things I need to do. We all do."

"But, JEEEAAAAANN!" Bobby said in his most whiney voice.

"It's your hometown, Bobby! Find. Something. To. Do." With that, she promptly hung up on him.

Bobby sat the phone back on the cradle and lay back on the couch with a sigh. He went back over his options. TV was a bust. He couldn't call his friends. There weren't even any chores to do around the house. Maybe Jean was right. Maybe he needed a hobby or something.

As he paced around the living room trying to figure out what he was good at, a strange glow lit up his back yard. He almost missed it, except for the loud yelling that accompanied it.

"Nooooo!" A small voice timbered. The only thing Bobby could glean was that the owner of the voice was young and upset.

"Dis isn't fair! We c'n fight too!"

"Listen, boys, I can't explain how much danger you're in, but ... Oh thank God! Bobby!"

Bobby stood on his back steps staring at Alison Blair and her two charges. He opened his mouth to ask, but then thought better of it. Being an X-Man made him more resilient to weirdness.

"Hey, Dazz. What's going on?"

"A war, that's what! Some of Mojo's old cronies have banded together. They've been giving us all sorts of trouble. They even tried to assassinate Longshot last night."

"Holy crap! Is he all right?"

"Yes, you know Longshot. Fortunately, the bullet didn't even come close. We were afraid that they might try to kidnap the X-Babies and try to use them as hostages, so we moved them to a safehouse. Unfortunately, these two hid. We found them this morning after the palace had already been surrounded. There's no way to get them to the safehouse with the others, and I'm afraid that they'll be hurt if they stay with us."

"Will not! We c'n fight!"

Bobby stared at a miniature, frozen version of himself that spoke defiantly and crossed his arms over his chest. The little red-on-black eyed boy beside him instantly copied his pose.

"Anyway," the woman called Dazzler continued, "I used Mojo's old inter-dimensional teleport system to come here. I was afraid that the army might think to check out Xavier's, and I remembered you telling me about how your hometown was somewhat close by. I intended to leave little Bobby and Remy with your mother. I figured she'd have experience with a young, rambunctious Drake."

Bobby grinned. "Well she's not here. Her and Dad are on vacation, but I'll take care of the little guys."

Alison looked at him skeptically. Bobby tried not to get upset at the doubting smirk that covered her sweet face.

"Really! It's just a little babysitting. I can handle it," he said confidently.

"Bobby, it's babysitting children with powers. I don't even know how long this siege will take. It could be weeks!"

"Alison, I've changed a lot since we last saw each other. Believe it or not, I'm more responsible than you think. Plus, kids love me."

Alison pulled at her sleeve. She looked down at the two boys and then back up at Bobby. He could practically hear the thought gears grinding. Slowly, she glanced back up at him with a disappointed look. She had made her decision.

"Well ... I really don't have a choice. If I don't 'port back soon the army might be able to trace it. Just promise me that if you have any trouble you'll call the rest of the team."

"All right! All right! You'd better get back. You know how useless Longshot is without you."

Alison leaned up and kissed him on the cheek before she disappeared again in a flash of light.

He looked down at the two boys in front of him. They looked up at him.

"Well, I guess that we should get to know each other. I'm Bobby."

"No, I am!"

Bobby stared at the tiny him and felt a little uneasy. "Right. Well, then why don't you guys call me Bob and you can keep being Bobby. How's that?"

"Don' want to be Bobby, I'm Remy," said the tiny Cajun.

"I know, I was talking to Bobby. He can be Bobby, you can be Remy, and I'll be Bob, okay?"

"'kay."

"Okay." Bobby … um, Bob, smiled. "Great. We're doing just fine. Now, I guess we should go inside. Bobby, can you de-ice, or do you stay iced up all the time?"

"De-ice?" the young him asked and looked confused.

"He always like dat."

"Hmm. Well I can't have you stay iced up in the house or we'll get everything wet. Mom would kill me."

"What's dat?"

"What's what?"

"Dat ting you said would kill you? Is it bad? I c'n blow it up! Well, sorta."

"What? Mom? You guys don't know what a mom is? No, I don't guess you wouldn't since you don't have one. Listen, I'll explain it later once we figure out how to get Bobby to not be icy."

Bobby looked upset. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing, but you don't need to use your powers all the time. This isn't Mojoworld. We have different rules here. You can't use your powers unless it's really important."

Before the smaller him could protest, Bob iced himself up and de-iced several times to show Bobby what it looked like. He tried to explain how he closed his eyes and thought of being warm and human whenever he wanted to change back. Bobby seemed to be having trouble. He doubted that the kid had ever not been made of ice. Finally after some more explaining he was rewarded with a young sandy blonde headed boy that looked very familiar. Of course, he also appeared to only be wearing a pair of spandex underoos.

After herding the boys into the house, Bob headed for the attic. He knew all too well that his mother never threw anything away. Fortunately, he found a trunk with old clothes that Maddy thought too precious to get rid of. There were a several outfits that he was sure the other him could wear. He brought most of them down, thinking that little Remy would probably need a change of clothes sooner or later himself.

He found them chasing each other around the couch like a couple of savages. He smiled and neatly scooped up his little doppelganger as he attempted to run by.

"All right, you. Put some clothes on before you get arrested. You, too, Remy. I doubt that spandex and armor make good play clothes."

The two boys got into an argument over who would wear the Dukes of Hazzard T-shirt because it had a cool car on it. He watched the two play "rock, paper, scissors" for it, and Bobby won. Since that was decided, Bob looked at the rest of the clothes and put together two outfits. Remy ended up wearing an old pair of blue jeans with a plain black T-shirt. Bob was sure that the older Remy would approve. Bobby wore the Dukes of Hazzard shirt with light blue shorts because Bob didn't have much that went well with the bright orange shirt. The younger Iceman didn't seem to mind, so the clothes were left as they were.

The boys made him turn around as they got dressed. Bob did so chuckling. A tug at his jeans leg told him they were finished.

He looked down at the adorable auburn haired Remy. "Mis'tah Bob, I'm hungry."

"Just Bob will be fine, and I'm getting kind of hungry myself. How about I make you guys some macaroni and cheese?"

After lunch, he ended up spending most of the rest of the day watching Cartoon Planet and explaining most of the cartoons to the two X-Babies. They were interested in everything, especially little Remy. While Bobby was content to sit next to his larger self and try to copy everything Bob was doing, Remy kept slipping off the couch to examine everything. Bob had even caught him trying to line his pockets with some of his mom's knickknacks. About eight o'clock that evening, he caught Bobby yawning a bit.

"Bedtime, guys."

"I'm not tired," Bobby said in between yawns.

"Me ne'ther."

"Come on, no arguments." Bob picked little Bobby up because he looked like he could barely stand. He kept rubbing his eyes, fighting sleep, but he was loosing ground fast. Remy reluctantly followed behind while holding on to Bob's pant leg. He took them to his own room, figuring it was more kid-friendly than his parents' froo froo floral design. He knew his dad hated the decoration, but Maddy had wanted it that way.

Bob deftly pulled back the covers while still holding Bobby. He laid the boy down gently and turned to pick up Remy and do the same.

"Who's dat?" Remy asked looking at the picture on Bob's nightstand.

"That's a picture of me and my mom and dad. We took it when I was a little older than you, right before I went off to school and became an X-Man," he said, helping Remy out of his old blue jeans. He decided he'd let Bobby sleep in the shorts he was wearing because he didn't want to wake him trying to get them off.

"Mom? De t'ing you said would kill you? She don' look so tough. I could take her."

Bob was surprised that Remy had remembered that. Most kids his age would have forgotten the conversation from that morning. Bob found himself wondering if the big Remy had been this bright when he was little.

"No. I was kidding. Mom would never hurt me. She takes care of me. You really don't know what a mom is, do you?"

"Non."

"Well, a mom is a woman that looks after you when you're little. They feed you and love you and make sure you're safe. Dads are the same, only they're guys instead of girls. Alison takes care of you, right?"

Remy looked confused.

Dazzler. She watches over all you kids."

"Oui."

"Well that's kind of what a mom is like."

"I wish I 'ad one of them all to myself," little Remy whispered and curled up beside his already sleeping buddy.

"I'm sure Remy would say the same thing. I'll be right down the hall if you need anything. I'll leave the door open a crack and the hall light on, okay?"

He didn't get an answer, so he headed for his parents' bedroom to watch some more TV before hitting the sack himself.

Bob woke with a start as he felt something jerking his arm. He was confused for a moment because he was in his parent's bedroom. Slowly, he realized that he must have fallen asleep while watching TV. He felt the tugging again and heard a small sniffle. Bob looked over to see a wet-cheeked Bobby pulling on his sleeve. Remy was behind him rubbing his eyes with tiny fists.

"What's wrong?" "I had a bad dream. I don't wanna sleep in there no more."

Bob wiped the tears from Bobby's cheeks and pulled him up onto the bed. He did the same for Remy before turning back.

"It's okay. I guess you two can sleep in here with me."

Bobby was still crying and Bob tried not to remember the times he had come into his parents' bedroom with the same problem when he was little. He hugged Bobby to him and started rocking him slowly just like his mom used to do for him.

"It's all right. I'm not going to let anything hurt you." He continued speaking softly to the boy until he heard the slow, deep breaths of sleep. Bob lay back with Bobby using his chest for a pillow. Remy had curled up into a ball next to him. Bob sighed and tried to go back to sleep.

continued >>

That is chapter one! Now you have an idea for the premise. I'd really like the list members to come up with problems/situations/etc for Bobby and the kids. We can discuss the ideas and I'll get to work. Hopefully, everyone will have a chapter where their idea is displayed! :)

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